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We were just miles off the pace, never looked like winning it. We managed some decent results against the other title challengers but just kept on throwing away silly points against the smaller team. To rub salt into the wounds, Newcastle lifted the trophy after a 3-1 victory against us, and the manager who lifted the trophy was none other than ex T&M youth product Andy Greenhouse. The last day of the season was still rather amusing though as Spurs lost 2-0 to Eastleigh, sealing their relegation.

FA Cup - once again, a weak team was put out but this time they were embarrassed.

UEFA Champions League - we made a mess of the group stage as Galatasaray dominated it, and followed it up with a swift exit against Inter.

Squad- after losing Percival last season we were a bit weak on the wings, so when Adam Warriner broke his leg in pre season and missed five months I knew we were in trouble. The new kids have promise, but they just weren't good enough to carry us this season.

Key Player Profiles:

Geoff Tynan - he started very slowly, so it was fantastic that he managed to score this many.

Lee Woodward - he was scoring for fun before missing two months with a hip injury.

Hednesford Season 7

Started slow, then good a great run of games, something like 19 unbeaten, from there it was up and down but we stayed at second until the end for automatic promotion.

Lost one of my better defenders in the January window other than that I feel like the team can score goals at the next level seeing as we broke the Championship team record with 114 on the season, question is can we stop leaking them.

McGeouch locked in to legendary status this season, one of the funnest players I have had always seemed to score that late game winner that saved us.

Bit strange that is has the same name as the old one but I can't complain! It is the first time we have actually been able to fund a new stadium ourselves, which is a bonus. I was always hoping that huge pile of cash would come in useful one day.

Bit strange that is has the same name as the old one but I can't complain! It is the first time we have actually been able to fund a new stadium ourselves, which is a bonus. I was always hoping that huge pile of cash would come in useful one day.

Amazing career dafuge, always enjoy reading the updates. BTW, what was the theory that led you to believe a new stadium was imminent?

I'm in the hall of shame in FM08 - most goals scored by a relegated team - 101

Posts

2,204

Having another go at this - started with Boston, I didn't read the thread too much so I could avoid picking up on player names. By the start of January I'm sitting 4th in the BSN and got knocked out in the 3rd rnd of the FA Cup away to Burnley in front of 9700 people, so a poor turnout and I lost 0-7.

I'm in the hall of shame in FM08 - most goals scored by a relegated team - 101

Posts

2,204

2010-11 Boston Utd BSS Pos 1st W 25 D 13 L 4 F 72 A 20 Pts 88 GD +52

Wow, what a season. It went much better the i expected, never really struggled and clinched the title with a game to go. In the Cups we got to the 3rd Rnd of the FA Cup beeting a L2 & a L1 side on the way, unfortunately we were drawn away to Prem Div Burnley who stuffed us 7-0 in front of only 9,700 fans, in the FA Trophey we made it to the 4th Rnd losing 0-1 to BSP Kidderminster away.

On the transfer side 13 players were signed including 3 players who I paid a fee for - these being a striker in Danny Mills from Peterborough who scored 25 goals in 53 games, Sam Habergham a left back from Norwich who played 47 games plus 3 as sub rating a 7.11 and central midfielder Lewis Ide from Brighton who made 37 starts plus 4 as sub scoring 6 creating 10 and rating 7.09.

Two Spaniards were signed on Frees - Jabuti a striker who managed 37 goals in 52+1 apperances and an attacking midfielder Juanje who made a good start but then picked up a nasty injury - he still managed 19(3) apperances scoring 4 setting up 12 and rating 7.13.

How do you find the time to play for so many years? You must rush through seasons at a rate of knots?! Any tips on how you manage that?

I am playing them very quickly at the moment, which is mostly down to watching matches on commentary only and the fact that I'm not signing any players. I've also been playing this game since release day, which helps.

Originally Posted by GreyedOutMan

Also, doesnt the game go SOOOO slow after so many years?

I haven't noticed it. With the relatively small setup and a reasonable computer it seems to be running just as quickly now as it was at the start. The save game is only 130MB!

How I had the team to get another promotion I don't know. I did make signings but I didn't think it would have the effect it did. It was a decent start but it wasn't until about halfway through the season that I went into 1st position. at about game 38 I was 7 points ahead. I thought this should actually be a easy finish. I was wrong the next 8 games produced 8 points. I finished the game with a 2-2 thriller at Barnet. It was an all or nothing game as Barnet was a point behind me in the league before the match.

FA Cup-We had a close game against Stevenage before putting up a good fight against league two Mansfield.

FA Trophy- What a nice surprise. I didn't expect to win anything so to complete a non league double was superb ! Also this cup competition has probably produced the most replays I have played in one competition on any FM. It was probably the main reason for our bad end to league as we had high fatigue.

Transfers-I didn't make that many transfers but only Tony Diagne didn't have a great season. However he did have a few solid performances that I couldn't see my Blue Square South defenders doing. I got rid of almost all of my deadwood. The only player I don't really want that I've been trying to get rid of for ages is the over 30 goalkeeper that's been in the subs bench.

Squad-With a few exceptions I can't see many of these players making it in League Two. I may have to bring quite a few new players in. Definitely a new goalkeeper

Best Players Profiles:

Leon Best-He was an amazing signing for free. I think he could be one of the few players who could make it in League Two. He didn't start off well but once he gelled with the team he was on fire. The reason why I have only one player in this section is because the majority of my team that have played exceptionally well have been strikers. So I thought only the best was needed.

With a new stadium due to be built at the end of the season, it was time to take a new direction with T&M. The homegrown squad was starting to fail as the ageing stars could no longer carry the weak squad of youngsters. This really was a transitional season as I went back into the transfer market in January and made a start at rebuilding the squad.

We started well but fell back as West Ham and Newcastle hit form. The new arrivals couldn't do a lot to help us catch the leaders which left us in the bizarre position between Cheltenham and Luton, with Man Utd getting relegated!

So, not a bad start to my Farnborough career, judging by our start to the season I would have taken this finishing position any day, we started slowly, very slowly, this may have been due to the fact that our players needed time to gel, or it could be the fact that up front we had no one who could run at opposition defenses, so, I brought in two more strikers, and then our season turned around, in the end, we were unlucky not to get into the play-offs.

Squad It was pleasing to see three players with 10 or more goals, defensively we were pretty solid, but our lack of goals at the start of the season probably cost us.

Finances Nothing I could do really, a decent cup run next season would be nice.

Alun Armstrong he may not have the best stats in the world, or be the youngest, but his ex-Ipswich ties made me bring him in, and boy did he repay my faith in him, he's like the Kevin Davies of the lower divisions, superb.

McMahon another one of my freebies, might not have the best stats in the world, but his assists were crucial over the course of the season, more of the same please.

Quick question here: I'm 7 seasons in (haven't got round to doing up seasonal reports right enough) and in League 1 with Bradford PA. At season's end have found us £800k in debt, losing about £100k a month comfortably, without any serious budget overspend - the board are allowing about £33k per week in wages.

What is people's approach here? Would you ignore it and take administration if it comes? Hope for a buy out? The alternative is that I have very sellable assets, a striker who can command £750k and a winger who can fetch £400k. Both were decent last season without setting the heather on fire, but are young and would be ok at Championship level.

I generally have no issue at all with just flogging players to raise cash, but in this instance is there a chance of being bailed out without doing that?

I seem to remember that I was in a similar situation and I just kept the debt in the hope that I would eventually be able to pay it off by climbing the ladder. I would take success over balancing the finances easily in that situation.

Basically, I got bored over the weekend and reinstalled fm2010. Trouble is, I'm running on Macbook. Tried to run the dafuge ddt but it isn't able to locate in the preferences file on the game. Any ideas? I've put it in the right place (with the Team Holland ddt) but it doesn't recognise the dafuge.ddt file whatsoever.

Anyone know where it's meant to be put? I've started a game using all the same criteria of the game, without the ddt file I'm actually doing pretty well with Oxford City, will update when I can.

Obviously, I want to do this properly, but I can't without the damn correct ddt file

Tried searching the thread, but when I put in 'mac', all I get is Macclesfield or a player called 'Macdonald.'

Hard to say which ones are realistic choices though. As this challenge has shown, reputation plays a huge role in deciding who gets promoted from feeder leagues in FM, so only the biggest few clubs will be available for selection without reloading until the end of time.

well, i have been flicking through all 84 pages of this thread for the last couple of days, as i am intending to take up the challenge for FM11. i did get involved in this for FM09 i think, or maybe FM08, but i have found dafuge's exploits inspiring, so i'll be taking it up again.

I'm in the hall of shame in FM08 - most goals scored by a relegated team - 101

Posts

2,204

2011-12 Boston Utd BSP Pos 1st W 31 D 10 L 5 F 90 A 37 Pts 103 GD +53

Another stonking season, I had expected to consolidate but ended up walking the division, fairly poor in the Cups knocked out of the FA Cup in the 2nd rnd in a replay and the 1st rnd of the FA Trophy.

On the transfer side 10 players were signed including on frees - the pick of these were Adam Virgo 28 year old CD ex of Celtic who made 48 apps scoring 6 times and averaged 7.17, Antonio Calderon a 27 year old DM who played 41 apps scoring 6 times and 10 assists av 7.07

Top 5 goalscorers

Jabuti 34 Fans Player of the Year, BSP Player of the Season, BSP Top Goalscorer, Goal of the Season and Players Team of the Year
Fitzharris 17
Calderon 6
Timlin 6
Virgo 6

Now, I would have taken a play-off place this season, seeing as there isn't much difference in terms of quality between the BSP and BSS, but I didn't think that we'd win the bloomin thing, and with relative ease; as far as the graph goes, we were doing well until the 28th game, of which we stepped up a few gears and won the league, and promotion with relative ease.

This will be my final season with Nantwich and FM2010 - I'd finished this season a while ago but hadn't got around to writing it up but with the FM2011 Demo about to be released this is a good time to bring it to an end. (I'm also trying to play through various other games I have before FM2011 is out)

This season would be a season of change as £14m was spend bringing in new youngsters for the future and at the same time £145m worth of players were sold including first teamers - Glaucio (AML), D'Angelo (DC), Jimenez Garcia (LB), Hamilton (MC), Giles (ST), Thomas (DC) and Tufano (AMR) most of whom were unhappy for various random reasons.

Even with my team weakened Man City were only just made favourites to win the league - finishing last season unbeaten 32 pts clear of 2nd placed Arsenal and 40pts clear of 5th place Man City still wasn't good enough for me to be made favourites, even the media reckoned we'd only finish 2nd. Being the third richest club in the World didn't even seem to help - we are worth £140m more than Man City (which is what Everton the English Team below City are worth).

That said the season didn't get off to the best of starts as we lost the Community Shield for the first time in six years - we couldn't break down a stubborn Spurs side and after missing our first three pens things looked bad but we fought back with my Keeper saving their last three pens and we scored both ours to send it to sudden death where we promptly missed our pen and lost

At least the European Super Cup went to plan as a Zelaia hat-trick was enough to beat Sporting to claim our Third Super Cup.

In December we also claimed our Third World Club Cup Trophy beating Chivas 6-0 with another Zelaia hat-trick and Sao Paulo 2-0 in the Final.

Back in England we were again to suffer Carling Cup heartbreak after losing to Arsenal in the Semi-Finals - in the first leg we gave away a 2-0 lead with Arsenals equalisler coming in the 92nd minute and in the second leg we never got going and faltered 2-1 thanks to two early goals.

Thankfully the FA Cup proved to be our revenge - though we didn't make the best start with an embrassing 2-2 Home draw to Preston in the Third Round, thankfully we claimed a 4-1 win in the replay before beating Peterborough and setting up a revenage match against Arsenal though needing a replay to beat them wasn't in the plan, but things got easier after that as we beat QPR 3-0 in the Quarter Final before thrashing Man City 4-0 in the Semi-Final.

In the Final we faced Sunderland and even with 10 men we cruised to a 5-1 victory thanks to a hat-trick from Reeves, which made it three FA Cup trophies in a row and five in total, whilst our 21 games without losing over the last three years was a new record.

Premier League - we got off to a good start in the league winning 11 of our first 15 games - suffering draws away to Liverpool and Man Utd, a shock home draw to Notts County and in our 15 game Spurs again shocked us beating us 1-0 which brough an end to our record-breaking unbeaten run that would stand at 57 games.

After returning from the World Club Cup we then thrashed league favourites Man City 7-0 with Ruben Tassi's peformance earning him the fans blessing. After that we walked the League and were named Champions after just 32 games.

Prem Table - We finally finished the Season 21pts clear of Arsenal and 30pts clear of favourites Man City. Which makes it our 5th Title in a row and 7th Total.

POS Graph - After taking pole position early in the season one got close to us.

Champions League - We moved upto Second favourites this season behind Real Madrid, though that maybe due to last years finalsts Barcelona randomly dropping into the Europa League this season.

Our campaign didn't get off to the best of starts as we lost to Sevilla before beating Red Star and then drawing to Salzburg however we won our last three games and just about finished top of the group.

In the Knockout Round we faced HSV and after suffering a 1-0 defeat in Germany I recalled the big guns for the Home leg and a double from Reeves inspired us to a 3-1 win.

In the Quarter Final we faced Marseille and some more awful finishing nearly cost as we could only draw with Marseille scoring in the 89th minute with their only shot on target. In the Second Leg Reeves again came to our rescue with two goals.

In the Semi-Final we'd face AC Milan and with the big guns recalled we still didn't get off to the best of starts as former player Pejic put Milan ahead, that at least spurred us on and we claimed a valuable 3-1 win. In the Second Leg despite taking an early lead our shooting again let us down and we were left hanging on for an agg. win.

In the Final we would face Real Madrid for the first time since they beat us in the 2026 Final and 2027 Semi-Final, and I wasn't exactly hopefully as we were missing Sousa, Zelaia, Herbert, Bond and Tassi.

And yet again our poor finishing nearly cost us - we fell behind twice only to strike back within 3 minutes twice, but after that we controlled the game but just couldn't score and in the end it needed a solo goal from Reeves in the 118th minute to win it.

Media Report - Reeves last minute goal made it three in a row and four in total.

Turkish Keeper Taha Kodalak continued in goal keeping 31 clean sheets in 53 games, providing cover was Academy player Joe Howard who was solid enough when called upon.

At Right Back Russell Clarkson was promoted to first choice with long term #2 Leite demanding a move which resulted in him spending the season on loan at Barcelona, providing was young Wonderkid Ian Whitbread who impressed when called upon despite being left footed and a Natural left sided player.

There was a change at left back as well with Garica wanting out Robbie Sloane came in and had an excellent season and he became yet another Wonderkid, providing cover was the solid Greg Griffin.

In the Centre of Defence I was also forced into making a change with Ian Thomas leaving for Milan, Rob Bond stepped in to replace him and he formed a fine partnership with Towering Norwegian Terje Amundsen. Providing cover was the Commanding Tomas Velazquez and Towering Centre Back Brian Bailie.

We also saw some changes on the wings, on the Right Wing Argentine born Italian Ruben Tassi grabbed hold of a first team place and wouldn't let go, which left Brazilian born Englishman Eduardo to provide cover. On the left an aging Dario turned back the years to put in some fine performances, whilst his understudy John Burt continued to impress. Academy player Richie Jenkins continued to provide cover from the bench.

Thankfully the Centre of Midfield saw no changes so Tenacious Defensive Midfielder Ricardo Sousa and World-Class Midfielder Kyle Herbert continued their partnership in the middle of the field with Industrious Defensive Midfielder Brett Stubbs and World-Class Midfielder Jordan Charles providing cover.

Upfront Ryan Reeves continued to lead the line with 38 goals in 48 starts, whilst his partner Cultured Striker Inaki Zelaia was also in fine form. Providing cover were Mark Street who had a fine season and Wonderkid Nathan Newton who showed glimpses of his potential.

I seem to remember that I was in a similar situation and I just kept the debt in the hope that I would eventually be able to pay it off by climbing the ladder. I would take success over balancing the finances easily in that situation.

In the end I went with my gut reaction, which was to conduct a fire sale of my most valuable players, which got me well into the black and resulted in the board increasing the wage budget significantly, allowing me to bring in a raft of much better players - on the whole - than those sold. I sneaked promotion too, so the strategy worked. My regret now though, is seeing that the striker I punted for £750k has just been sold on for £2.4 million, and I didn't bother with a sell on clause to maximise the up front cash offer...

Still, onwards and upwards to the championship, right back in debt again.

Any changes to this challenge for FM11, dafuge? Definitely will be playing it

I'll probably kick the challenge off as usual on release day but I don't think I'll be taking part this year, certainly not straight away. As I've done so much with my T&M game this year I'm going to start with something different with FM2011.

Carling Cup - an easy run that lead to a reversal of the community shield in the final as the penalties went our way.

FA Cup - it looked like we were set for the final, but we suffered a shock at Wembley in the semi.

UEFA Champions League - we met AC Milan in the group stage for the third year running, only this time they managed to qualify. We squeezed through the knockout rounds to meet Real Madrid in the final, which we won comfortably.

Squad - this is a quality squad with strength in nearly every position.

Transfers - I stuck with the same players as we were starting to run out of money.

Key Player Profiles:

Galder Angulo - top scorer from midfield, superb stuff from the captain.

Story of the Season:Premier League - 1st, ChampionsWon the title with 78 points from 33 games, messed about with the last few games, still cracked the ton of goals though.

Champions League - WinnersThe quarter final against Spurs was the tricky one, three goals down in the first half of the first leg, the away goal ended up being critical. Still, the winner in the second leg came in the 88th minute, bullet header from Mike Hunt

FA Cup - WinnersLast trophy win of the season, Enrique Lopez Santos was the hero in the final against Championship Reading.

European Super Cup - WinnersDitto.Transfers - £18.25m Profit
Perry Fisher left in the only piece of significant transfer news, 11 and a half seasons of good service behind him. Of the other transfers involving fees Daniel Jones and Josh Harding were both academy strikers who wouldn't really have made it, so decided to cash in.

Other News: Paulinho finally became a liability at first team level, but he's so close to 1000 appearances that I'll carry him through to it next season - he only needs another 31, easily attainable with dead rubbers and substitute appearances. First clean sweep in a number of seasons, suggesting the squad is still very strong. John Hollis and George Parks have submitted transfer requests, but they have 3 years left on their contracts, so I still have time to play with.

Next Season:Keep it up, hopefully!

5 Most Important Players:
5. Anto Savic - AMR/L - Great season for the winger, scoring and providing in equal numbers.
4. Massimiliano Maggio - ST - Actually back to pre-10.3 form at some points this season, he's certainly showing he's still got something in the tank at this stage of his career.
3. Daniel Jenkins- AMR/L - Top assist maker again, unfortunately it doesn't seem like he'll improve much more. 2. Ramon Colunga - DC - A good enough season from one of the greatest players ever to represent Merthyr, probably on the wane now.
1. Enrique Lopez Santos - ST - Almost a goal per start, definitely first choice now since Hollis' transfer request.

Dafuge - Has the game not got boring for you yet? What is making you press the Continue button? and do you plan on doing the challenge in FM11?

I've played my last season with FM2010 now, so I suppose I could say that the game has become boring because I no longer have anything to aim for. Even though my game did go on for so long, I always had something to work towards. With no long term aims I doubt I would have been able to play for that long.

I'm not sure about FM2011. Since I've done so much with T&M I don't feel like trying to repeat it again with FM2011, I want something different. I'm planning on a journeyman career but may well come back to this challlenge at some point if that doesn't work out.

I've always had that issue with the challenge since completing it with Leigh Genesis several versions ago but it seems like few have that problem as many on this thread do this challenge yearly. I did try a journeyman career last year but found that I was always looking to move onto a bigger club after just one season (not really sure why). Am tempted to do your challenge again but really want to manage England which obviously is against the rules - argh decisions.

I've always had that issue with the challenge since completing it with Leigh Genesis several versions ago but it seems like few have that problem as many on this thread do this challenge yearly. I did try a journeyman career last year but found that I was always looking to move onto a bigger club after just one season (not really sure why). Am tempted to do your challenge again but really want to manage England which obviously is against the rules - argh decisions.

I've played this challenge for the last five versions of FM now, each year I've managed to do something slightly different but I think my T&M game has killed off my enthusiam for it with FM2011 since there isn't really anything left for me to do.

You are allowed to manage England, but only after completing the challenge.

I would have been surprised if 70-odd seasons with one club didn't kill off the challenge. I'm a Spurs fan and about 4-years ago I played through a lot of seasons with them winning everything and even now I just can't seem to find playing Spurs fun which is frustrating as they are the team I know the most about.

Yeah I understand that but I'd prefer to manage England from season one but even if I did that and ignored the challenge thread it would make the challenge less of a challenge.

I started this with Chippenham on FM10 and loved it. I wont be playing it this year, well not initailly however. I will be doing something similar though as, like my first game on FM10 after it was released, I want to manager Worcester who are my local team. I loved it last time getting them to the prem but then my computer broke and I started this challenge on my new one.

I can well understand people feelings on taking a break from the challenge this year, after completing it this year i'm thinking of doing Gundo's. Besides with the sad demise of Merthyr who i've gone with the last 2 fm's it won't be the same.
Still if Totton could have been promoted i would have been interested

I can well understand people feelings on taking a break from the challenge this year, after completing it this year i'm thinking of doing Gundo's. Besides with the sad demise of Merthyr who i've gone with the last 2 fm's it won't be the same.
Still if Totton could have been promoted i would have been interested

Yeah, I'll be having a go at Gundo's for the same reason. Doubt I'll get round to this one, unless someone uploads a save with Bashley promoted, I've actually seen them play a couple of times

I needed to bring quite a few players in this season to maintain my football league side. I thought promotion was possible as I've always managed to overachieve before. The must was to keep above the red in finances and hopefully improve at least one of the stadium, training facilities or youth facilities at the end of the season. This was a tough task but I knew I was more than capable of doing it.

I somehow managed to sneak in the top 3 !!!. There are a few players that did outstanding and is the reason why we've got promoted. At the start of the season I didn't sign new contracts with that many players so a lot of them left. This was almost like blue square south all over again but with better players targeted. We reached our wage budget with the players we brought in and I think that after this position they deserved this. As you can see by the table we didn't really start to get going until the 7th game. From here we managed to top the table after 11 games and after that we never went out of the top 7. Rotherham were uncatchable. The only reason they are only 5 points ahead are because of a bad run of form towards the end. Mansfield came out of nowhere but deserved the promotion. Last year I had to face barnet to gain promotion to league 2. This year guess who I had ? It was lincoln who were in 3rd place at the time. I thrashed them 4-1. I just hope I'm not going to fall apart one of these days!

FA Cup-A uneventful cup for us. Darlington became a bit of a bogey team for us as they beat us all three times in the season.

League Cup-All of the goals were in the first half. It was a very boring game for the duration of the match and it was quite nasty to lose on penalties but this competition isn't important

Johnstone's Paint Trophy-I thought we might go forward in this competition a couple of rounds if we managed to get a couple of league two teams. We got a tough draw against watford though and we got punished by their top strike force.

Transfers-I got rid of quite a few of the BSP winning team. This is mainly because my finances weren't enough to keep this squad plus my signings. So I had to get rid of every single player who I didn't think could make it in league two. Barry Lakin my assistant was probably not good enough either but I didn't think this mattered as much. I'll be looking for a new assistant soon though. Scott Gallagher has got potential for the championship in my opinion as at 23 he's already one of the best league two keepers there is. Kal Naismith was originally bought as a winger but after seeing his stats changed to striker. The rest of the players all had potential except Alan Mahon who was to provide football league experience for the club at the start of season. Finally I brought in some loan signings and all of them showed to me that if bought they'd blossom into quality players.

Squad-A small squad but it did it's job. However, this squad will be made smaller soon when the players return to their clubs. I'll have to invest in new players guaranteed or bring the players back on loan again. Decisions...decisions

Best Players Profiles:

Kal Naismith-What an incredible player. Signed as a free he was only mean't to be my first choice winger. However after a re look at his stats I noticed he could be put up front. I did this and he banged them almost every game. This is by far the most anyone has scored for me and not only has he scored that many but he's got an 8 average rating ! This has never happened to me in FM before and I'm surprised he's not already on the favourite personnel list

Wayne McCormick-Brought on loan from Notts County, a solid and determined defender who always put in a good performance. On a side note Notts County are doing quite well in Championship and has a very good youth team ! Plus they are my feeder club

Enrico Petrillo-On loan from burnley, this quick winger was my first non-british player. I have to say he does look terrible in some attributes but in the ones that mattered he performed. Often was the case that he would cross for Naismith who headed the ball into the net like a bullet.

Leon Best-Last season's star player still performed quite well in this league. He had some good spells in the season where he was scoring for fun. In other parts he couldn't get a goal to save his life. However he was always reliable to at least put in decent amounts of effort

Next Season
I'm not going to predict anything. I just want us to avoid relegation and If we somehow become champions then so be it. I doubt this run of promotions is going to last forever but as long as I don't come back to league 2 I've made progress.

Yeah, the Bradford Park Avenue thing went horribly, bottom of the table and sacked in February. Not even Jabuti could score for me

Started again wtih Boston Utd. 4 games in and top of the table having scored 15 goals so far (my centre back has 4 already ). I'll be posting in here for a while, even if I'm the only one around because, as is my usual, I doubt I'll be starting any long term games on a the new version before a couple of patches have been released.

Yeah, the Bradford Park Avenue thing went horribly, bottom of the table and sacked in February. Not even Jabuti could score for me

Started again wtih Boston Utd. 4 games in and top of the table having scored 15 goals so far (my centre back has 4 already ). I'll be posting in here for a while, even if I'm the only one around because, as is my usual, I doubt I'll be starting any long term games on a the new version before a couple of patches have been released.

I'll still be here a while not quite finished with my Merthyr game yet

Good to hear, SnakeXe. I've been catching up with your progress from when I was last around. Some might say you're dominating English football. If my counting's right you've own 15 of the last 16 Premier League titles And it's incredible to see Paulinho nearing the 1000 appearance mark, I've never had anyone get near that on any version of FM.

I don't think fans of my Boston side can complain about a lack of entertainment so far. Seven games into the league our results so far have been 2-2, 5-2, 4-0, 4-1, 2-2, 2-4, 5-0. That's 24 goals scored, 11 conceded and 3rd in the table. Dennis Wyness and Jabuti are forming a lethal partnership up front.

Good to hear, SnakeXe. I've been catching up with your progress from when I was last around. Some might say you're dominating English football. If my counting's right you've own 15 of the last 16 Premier League titles And it's incredible to see Paulinho nearing the 1000 appearance mark, I've never had anyone get near that on any version of FM.

I don't think fans of my Boston side can complain about a lack of entertainment so far. Seven games into the league our results so far have been 2-2, 5-2, 4-0, 4-1, 2-2, 2-4, 5-0. That's 24 goals scored, 11 conceded and 3rd in the table. Dennis Wyness and Jabuti are forming a lethal partnership up front.

Haha, I hadn't actually realised that! It's funny how you lose track of these things when you're focusing on something else (in my case, youth development). Paulinho is something else though, at the age of 39 he's still putting in great displays when required. The most pleasing thing for me is I can now put out a team containing 8 youth products against all but the very best teams and be confident they'll win

Sounds like you're creating an entertaining side at Boston! Jabuti is something else, he was still scoring in the Championship on my Tiverton save. Perhaps I should continue that one some day!

Building up a good youth system is something I'm anxious to do throughout this attempt at the challenge. I always find it very rewarding to see players come through your system and reach the very top.

Jabuti and Wyness are on an incredible run so far. Jabuti's stats are 11 games, 13 goals, 4 assists whilst Wyness' are 11 games, 7 goals, 10 assists. The number of times Wyness has dropped deep, taken a pass from the midfield, then turned and played in Jabuti is staggering. If they can keep this going then I can sniff a first season promotion (which would be nice) but I suspect defences may get wise to them before much longer.

Anyone got a list of the possible clubs we could be managing yet in FM11? Will probably start with this challenge, since for some unknown reason I love spending my first few hours reloading for lower rep teams and uploading the saves for everyone. If my past few attempts are anything to by, it will be my 3rd or 4th attempt before I gel with a team enough that I can get past 5 seasons in the BSS/N!

Story of the Season:Premier League - 1st, ChampionsHad a slightly more tough task winning this year, with teams finally getting their acts together to post competitive totals. Depending on how the summer goes, we might be in a real battle next year.

Champions League - WinnersA crazy last 15 minutes away to Milan aside, where we conceded 3 incredibly sloppy goals - one of which was utterly ridiculous, as their striker ran at my two centre-halfs, who each left it to the other to close him down, so he just literally ran straight between them and scored. A great performance in the home leg overturned the deficit, and the final was won with a strong showing.

FA Cup - WinnersMuch trickier than last year's, with Liverpool running us incredibly close in the final.

League Cup- WinnersProbably should have won the final without the need for penalties, but it's nice to get a shoot-out win under our belts as we don't have a great record in them.

European Super Cup - WinnersDitto.Transfers - £61m Profit
Two bits of huge business, record scorer Massimiliano Maggio finally leaving the club for £28.5m as he felt he'd done all he could. It was a shame to see him go, but the fee at his age was pretty hard to turn down, especially considering we really need to start developing some of our own strikers. The other was George Parks heading to Italy for £27m, a really top-class fullback, but strangely we didn't miss him too much. Other small tidbits involved academy graduates who hadn't made an impression.

Other News: Paulinho has one year left on his contract, and made a healthy 20 starts this year, so hopefully he'll carry on playing next year, and will undoubtedly break the 1000 appearances barrier if he does. He, Valentino Bianchi, Ramon Colunga, Stuart Harris, Jose Maria Hidalgo, Marcelo Echague, Anto Savic, John Hollis, Mike Hunt, and Enrique Lopez Santos are the only non-academy players left at the club. Paulinho will be done in one season, Bianchi will go as soon as a left-footed full-back comes through the academy, Colunga is 32, I'm thinking of selling Savic, and Hollis has submitted a transfer request, so that number could shrink rapidly over the next season or two.

Next Season:I don't think we'll do another clean-sweep, the players were knackered at the end of the season and we could (maybe should) have lost both the FA Cup and Champions League finals. On the other hand, the academy players will be a year older and better, and only really Paulinho and Colunga are the wrong side of 30, so who knows?

5 Most Important Players:
5. Daniel Jenkins - AMR/L - In a pretty lean year for the wingers, he was the best of a relatively bad bunch.
4. John Hollis - ST - A fantastic return from the striker, he's only down here because he submitted a transfer request on the eve of an FA Cup Semi-Final - bad timing mate.
3. Marcus Phillips- AMC - Breakthrough season for him, equal top assist maker with Lopez Santos. My third academy player to make this list. 2. Ramon Colunga - DC - Definitely on the wane, still a class above though.
1. Enrique Lopez Santos - ST - Another great season from the world-class striker.

Not a bad season then Will be great to see Paulinho break the 1000 mark next season.

I'm currently struggling with a striker crisis. Jabuti suffered strained knee ligaments, Kyle McAusland came in and got some goals, now both he and Wyness have joined Jabuti on the sidelines. I now only have one fit senior striker. The next 2-3 weeks until everyone is fully fit could be seriously troublesome. On the plus side, we're top of the league after 18 games.

Not a bad season then Will be great to see Paulinho break the 1000 mark next season.

I'm currently struggling with a striker crisis. Jabuti suffered strained knee ligaments, Kyle McAusland came in and got some goals, now both he and Wyness have joined Jabuti on the sidelines. I now only have one fit senior striker. The next 2-3 weeks until everyone is fully fit could be seriously troublesome. On the plus side, we're top of the league after 18 games.

Yeah I can't wait! Just keeping my fingers crossed he doesn't suddenly jack it in over the summer. It's funny, although we did the clean sweep again, it felt like the other sides were much, much closer to us this year. I really can't see us managing it a third time in a row, one of those off-days like the one against AC Milan will happen in a knockout game, or we'll not come back from it in the second leg or something.

Ouch, haven't had many injury crises that bad recently! Had no fit left backs earlier in the season, that's probably the worst in a while. Hopefully you can keep it tight at the back and nick a few 1-0s until the big guns are back

Anyone got a list of the possible clubs we could be managing yet in FM11? Will probably start with this challenge, since for some unknown reason I love spending my first few hours reloading for lower rep teams and uploading the saves for everyone. If my past few attempts are anything to by, it will be my 3rd or 4th attempt before I gel with a team enough that I can get past 5 seasons in the BSS/N!

Anyone got a list of the possible clubs we could be managing yet in FM11? Will probably start with this challenge, since for some unknown reason I love spending my first few hours reloading for lower rep teams and uploading the saves for everyone. If my past few attempts are anything to by, it will be my 3rd or 4th attempt before I gel with a team enough that I can get past 5 seasons in the BSS/N!

Blue Square North
Well, frankly, this went a bit well. Set the task of 'learning from the experience' (or, in other words, we expect you to get relegated but don't embarrass the club), I think we can put a big tick in that column. We started the season as something of an entertaining side, scoring for fun and conceding almost as many. That culminated in a game at Vauxhall Motors, which was 3-3 after 14 minutes (and which we went on to win 6-4). I felt a need to try and tighten up defensively a bit after that, and especially when we went through a striker crisis, but we still conceded more than anyone above 17th place. So it's a good job that we rattled home 114 goals in the league campaign. We will definitely have to play better defensively if we want to stay in the Blue Square Premier though.

FA Cup
I enjoyed some excellent cup runs in my early seasons with Canvey that effectively bank-rolled the club and enabled us to buy our way up the divisions. I'll be looking for more of the same with Boston, but we failed to get to the first round proper this season. Both our second and third qualifying round games (against Cambridge City and Biggleswade Town) required replays before we got dicked 5-0 by BSP side Histon in the 4th qualifying round.

FA Trophy
I failed to win this with Canvey, so it's on my to do list with Boston. Unfortunately a late comeback by Kiddymonster in the 1st round denied us the chance to go further this season.

Transfers
Leon Osbourne's move was arranged before I joined the club (and as he proved to be useful, I'm thankful of it) and I 'cheated' a bit with obvious prior knowledge that Jabuti would do the business. My best pick up, however, was former SPL stalwart Dennis Wyness. Goodness knows why he wanted to join a BSN side, but thank Christ that he did.

Terkleton's Top 55. Michael Welch
Picked up on a free transfer, with a jumping stat of 15 he was always going to be a good player at this level. He managed four goals in our first four league games, though after that people got a little bit wise to the fact that we simply had him attacking the far post and stuck our corners in that area every time. Still, nine goals was impressive, but even more so was the fact that he won 375 out of 453 headers and 146 out of 159 tackles over the course of the season. My defence didn't work as I had wanted it except for Michael, I'm confident he can step up.

4. Kyle McAusland
Probably the surprise of the season in my eyes, Kyle did a superb job, whether it was filling in for the often injured Jabuti or standing in as Welch's centre back partner. His favourite goal seems to be making a mug of a centre back on the edge of the box before drilling one into the top corner, though with his pace he's pretty useful in chasing down the channels for balls over the top. Thoroughly earned another year on his contract.

3. Lee Canoville
The Carlos Alberto of the Blue Square North. Part of the reason we struggled defensively was that Lee was often seen bombing down the right flank, swinging crosses into the box for either Wyness or Jabuti. Nineteen assists from a full back is an immense contribution, and I was willing to take the defensive problems that it caused for the attacking pay off that he brought.

2. Jabuti
Look at those stats and then imagine what they'd have been had he got a full season under his belt. 28 goals in 27 games, the Spaniard never fails to deliver. A bit of a ******* for a hat-trick (he got four of them over the course of the season), he has done nothing but build my expectation of what he'll do at BSP level. I think I love him.

1. Dennis Wyness
God. Plain and simple, this man is now my God. Assists and goals by the bucket load, he unsurprisingly took the Blue Square North Player of the Year and Top Goalscorer awards. He may be getting on (now 34) but he's been given a contract for next year, and whilst I don't expect the same level of miracle performance, if he can continue to bring the best out of Jabuti then I'll be a very happy man. Also scored the goals against Blyth that sealed our title win.

Next Season
Staying up is, of course, the be all and end all, but with players like Jabuti and Wyness (plus Aaron Morris and Conrad Logan already signed up for our BSP assault), I'll be a little disappointed if we end up scraping survival. I'd love a season of anonymous mid-table boredom. Of course, another Manager of the Year trophy wouldn't be argued with if it came my way

Career Overview

Code:

Season League Final Pos. Achievements
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2010/11 Blue Square North 1st Automatic Promotion

Boston United 100 Club

Code:

Name (Position) League Games (Overall Games); League Goals (Overall Goals); Average Rating
(Dates at club)
No entrants to date.

Stat Attack
We used 25 players over the course of the season and the only outfield player who contributed neither a goal or assist was nineteen year old back up left back Owen Kessack.

Great season there, Terk, and a monster goal total! I used Jabuti as a lone striker when I had him at Tiverton, but if I'd had someone the quality of Wyness next to him I'm sure he'd have been even better!

how can you see that? I've pre-loaded through steam but the only thing I can see when right-clicking on FM11 is 'pre-load info' and other stuff..

I pre-loaded yesterday and then today steam popped up with another message today saying 'Steam has finished downloading FM11'. I looked at the downloads page and it was a 340mb download, so I assume this was the patch downloading. I haven't looked at the editor to confirm it, but it's the only thing I can imagine it having been.

I pre-loaded yesterday and then today steam popped up with another message today saying 'Steam has finished downloading FM11'. I looked at the downloads page and it was a 340mb download, so I assume this was the patch downloading. I haven't looked at the editor to confirm it, but it's the only thing I can imagine it having been.